Features

You may have heard by now about the Kindle book, The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure, that was posted on Amazon, greeted with mass outrage, and subsequently removed by Amazon. My first thought hearing this was: Damn, self-publishing doesn’t need this.  Though with self-publishing, this kind of thing is inevitable, as self-publishers can post anything and everything they want, this doesn’t help the stigma that self-publishers are putting out the worst writing available.  There is no argument against this: of all the published work out in the world, self-published writing likely comprises the worst of it.

That […]

I thought this was an interesting way to do a book launch: The creators of some popular webcomics have a new book coming out next week called Machine of Death (a collection of short stories from a whole mess of folks), and they’re asking all their fans to buy the book on the same day in an attempt to push it to #1 in Amazon’s sales rankings.

Now, they may or may not find any lasting sales impact from their day in the sun (anyone who’s had a review or promotion push their amazon sales rank up will tell you […]

I grew up reading the likes of Uncanny Xmen, Incredible Hulk and disturbingly, Watchmen, among scores of other super hero titles. For better or worse, those comic books help shape much of my personality and imagination.

Spending six years contracting for the Department of Education, I repeatedly ran into educator innovators, centering student learning on comic books. See Columbia’s Comic Book Project for an example.

Reading comics, I absorbed massive amounts of knowledge: the basics of quantum physics, chemistry, astrology–naturally my vocabulary and word usage was improved. To boot, comic stories were my only source of highly creative drama […]

I’ve read Writer’s Digest for years. As a teenager I used to pour over its articles about how to write query letters and dream of having novels published. Then as an adult I would dutifully study the advice in the magazine about how to get published. Although I find no fault with the advice provided by the magazine. It is honestly provided by industry experts, but everything in the October 2010 issue was decidedly discouraging from the point of view of a fantasy writer.

Writer’s Digest did not intend this, but the fact was painfully obvious in the article “The […]

The playing field of publishing has tilted, but it hasn’t leveled by any means. The vast majority of books sold still involve the cutting down of a tree and the passing through of some very tiny gates. But it is has tilted, and if you step back, and make a little director’s square with your hands, you’ll see that it is skewed in favor of those who understand the digital world.

There is no doubt that some of the Big Six (BS) will alter course to swing their mammoth tankers towards the unchartered waters of the social consumer. Others will […]